2010-08-19: Mars Invades the Mansion!
Summary: The Xavier Mansion gets an unexpected visitor from another planet Location: Xavier Courtyard Participants: Cyclops, Miss Martian Rating: PG The Mansion's warning/alarm system might make note of the girlish figure in the cape, flying down from the sky toward the X-Men's courtyard. Facial recognition software might match said girl to a single television appearance and the name 'Miss Martian'. Whoever she is, the green girl doesn't land but floats about three inches off the ground so she won't disturb the carefully maintained lawn. "Hello!" She calls out happily, "Are the X-Men home?" Miss Martian's arrival, while noted by the school's advanced security system, doesn't exactly cause a swarm of security to come crawling out. In fact, she mostly will just be greeted incidentally, as Scott Summers is on his morning jog around the perimeter of the mansion. Dressed in an Xavier Institute tee and jogging shorts, he comes to a short halt at the green-skinned flying girl hovering before him. He starts to try to remember if such a student was supposed to be here for orientation this week, and comes up blank. Then she asks about the X-Men, causing Scott to stiffen up slightly. "Who are you?" he asks, sounding more curious than cautious, though an aware teep will pick up both. "We don't know anything about the X-Men, we're just a private school." He pauses another second, before asking. "Where did you hear about us?" The website, possibly, though the school staff intentionally keeps it rather uninformative. The less information available, the better. "I'm M'gann. Or Miss Martian, Mr. Summers." M'gann doesn't really read the other man's mind. Its too well guarded for that. She just skims the surface where thoughts tend to clutter, "I wanted to meet the X-Men. I've seen them on the television and read about them in the internet. They seem like very interesting people." She pauses, then adds. "I'm from Mars." If it weren't for the whole fac that he's dealing with a daughter from another dimension and a time traveler in his basement, meeting a little (okay, maybe not exactly little, but certainly cute) green girl from Mars would be more distressing. He offers a sheepish grin a bit, clearly caught. "Hi," he offers. "My name is Scott Summers, though you seem to already know that." He cants his head to one side. "In fact, you seem to know a lot. More than just what's on the TV." He doesn't ask straight out why, but his tone asks the question for him. "Martians are telepathic." M'gann answers the unasked question, "For us, mental communication is as natural as talking is for humans. More, really. That's what caught my interest. There's a lot of telepathic chatter around this area." She actually blushes, her green cheeks burning red, "I wasn't easedropping, really... I just... picked up a few stray thoughts and put together the puzzle. Sorry." Scott shakes his head a bit with a laugh. "You did what comes natural to you, no need to be ashamed about that," he says comfortingly. He clear his thoughts for a second before sending out telepathically, «Testing, 123, testing. My girlfriend is a telepath, so pretty used to talking telepathically,» he shares before closing the distance between the two a bit. «And while I feel like I can trust you, I do need you to keep our secrets exactly that: a secret.» «Oh, very good! No thought clutter at all! I'm, like, impressed!» M'gann's mental voice has the same perky, cheerfully sweet sound as her vocal one but there's something underpinning it. Smells of the desert and red rocks. «I don't want to pry into your secrets. I promise I won't. Cross my heart and hope to die.» She actually crosses her heart as she "thinks" it. «I'm one of the good guys!» «Lots of practice. But thank you, I work hard on it,» Scott says, beaming a little outwardly before he goes back to speaking in outward voice. "And I certainly hope so, we don't let bad guys on our premises. We're very strict about that," he informs her, his tone only half-teasing. "So don't tell me: you're the Martian Manhunters niece? Cousin? Much younger kid sister?" "Not related at all. Just the same species. I guess we're family now, though." M'gann glances up at the sky, using her telescopic Martian vision to look at her homeworld, "Because we're the last of our kind. I think. I hope not but... gosh, I'm being a downer. Mutants are very interesting, don't you think? Something like them happened a looooooong time ago on Mars." Scott glances towards the sky as M'Gann does. He doesn't have telescopic seeing, though he does squint slightly. "Don't worry about it," he says. "Everyone says I'm a wet blanket anyway, probably can't bum me out too bad." He nods his head at the other side. "We've been considering that some, with the revelation of alien life. We suspected that other planets had similar situations, where some genetic lines were more gifted than others." He pauses, wincing a bit before he asks, "If it isn't prying, is that the reason you and the Manhunter are here? On Earth? Because of the Martian mutants?" "Huh? Oh." M'gann shakes her head. Its a new expression to her so she shakes a bit too vigorously, causing her hair to flail around. "Nope! J'onn came because he was teleported here, I think. By accident. I came here because I found out he was here. Mars... you've seen pictures, right? The rovers there? So cute! I love those little guys! But... um... there was a virus. A telepathic virus. People died. Everyone died. Except J'onn. And me. I was sent away before the virus because of a war between the white martians and the green martians..." She pauses, then crinkles her nose. "Sorry. I'm overexplaining, aren't I? Our race stabilized out of our mutation phase, evolutionary speaking, long before the extinction. But a lot of what you might call our superpowers came from there." Scott shakes his head, giving M'gann a good example of doing it a little less dramatically. "Not at all, I find it fascinating. I've met a few aliens, our headmaster even more, but I never get amazed at the...vastness of history that we have no idea about." He pauses, before adding. "You ever heard the phrase, 'Those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat its mistakes?' Imagine what we could learn about not just the mistakes of our own past, but the entire history of the universe." "Wow. That's cosmic!" M'gann says, eyes bright. "You should totally contact one of the Green Lanterns. I bet they have a bunch of alien history stored away on Oa. That's their home planet. Well, their base. Green Lanterns are from all over. I know there's one here because I saw him on the news. There are a LOT of species out there. Big empires like the Skrulls... I think they may be our cousins, I'm not sure... and little groups like the cute Ewoks! I loved that documentary." "Actually, Star Wars isn't..." Scott starts, but something about the look on her face, he doesn't have the hear to tell her, so he lets that though die. "Well that's a project for someone much bigger and smarter than I. I'm happy fighting for human rights, teaching trig and algebra, and spending time with my girl. Much more than that, and you get a grumpy Scooter." "Grumpy Scooter." M'gann giggles, the words just... making her laugh. Maybe because she just saw Cars so the idea of a grumpy scooter... never mind. Anyway! "You have one of our powers. Did you know that? I bet it started out like that. One Martian having an ability here, passing it off to an offspring... of course we don't reproduce like you do..." Scott's brow furrows a bit as he frowns. "How did you know what my..." he starts, then again stops himself. Telepathy, right. He rubs the back of his head as he nods his head. "That make sense. Without going into much detail-which you might know already-we have seen some of the results of the next generation of mutants. Needless to say, they are considerably more powerful. I don't even want to think about what we might be looking at five, six generations down the line." "Well, I suppose it depends on how long it takes your genes to stabilize. In the Martians, we ended up with complete control over our molecules, more or less. And the telepathy... the eye blasts... the flying..." M'gann considers, "Wow. I guess we do have a lot of powers. I never really thought of that." Scott puts on his best faux-pout, though a little mental peeking will reveal he's not really upset. "Hey, leave our poor underdeveloped gene pool alone. So we're a little behind the curve," he fake-whines, before breaking into a grin. "Its all a matter of perspective. Back home, you were like everyone else; here, you're something special, different." Miss Martian thinks about that for a moment. She really ponders, curling up into the "Thinker position", floating in the air. "Hmmm. You're right. I do like being special... that's something to think about. You must be a really good teacher!" Scott blushes slightly, not used to compliments. Still, he offers a small nod of his head and says "Thanks, I try. Sometimes I get a reputation for having something stuck up my butt, but if nothing else, my kids come out of my class understanding spacial relations and complex proofs. And at the end of the day that's all that matters, right?" Miss Martian narrows her eyes as she stares at Scott's mid-section. "You don't have anything stuck there. I just checked. Though if you have pain you should see a medical professional." Then she runs on with that. "Math? Hard. I used to have a lot of trouble calculating the proper mass distribution ratios for shapeshifting." Scott laughs a bit, rubbing the back of his head. Oh the humor talking to aliens. "That's an earth expression. It means that someone's a bit uptight," he explains, only to realize that might need explanation as well. "Um, or that someone's mean. No fun. Makes every one else's life miserable." He nods, thinking that about covers it. "I got that reputation, and mostly undeserved, if I do say so myself. Strict? Maybe, but fair and honest at least." He boggles slightly at M'gann's comment about having to do calculations to shapeshift. "I have to do something like that," he says, though it is a bit of a reach. "Trig helps me calculate the best angles to shoot my eyes at. And also taught me a mean game of pool." "A lot of young Martians liked to complain about it." M'gann says with a grin, "Why do we have to learn how to do something that comes, like, naturally to us and all. But if you don't learn the math your shapes come out all wrong. Instead of looking like a B'klorpal beast you end up looking like a G'leek." "Well that WOULD be embarrassing," Scott agrees, nodding a bit. "And a lot of young Earthlings like to complain about just anything. Its part of our maturing process, like teething only even grumpier and much more hormonal." He is amusing himself a this point. "So is there anything else I can do for you M'Gann?" "I would like to meet your telepaths at some point." M'gann says eagerly, "I would enjoy seeing how human telepaths have developed. I have to admire them. For Martians, it was so much a part of our culture but humans must have to work so much out on their own. I imagine it can be very hard." "I am beginning to suspect that it is harder for them than it is you, though for some it is second nature," Scott says. "Talking to the Professor is never a simple matter, as you never know if he's eavesdropping on your mental amendments. Like a walking-talking lie detector...only better." He looks a little apologetic before adding. "Unfortunately, we're in orientation right now, so everyone is pretty busy. I need to get changed myself so I can greet the new students. Some other time though, I'm sure Jean and the Professor would be happy to meet with you, talk brain-powers." Miss Martian captures mental images of both Jean and Xavier. Something for M'gann to look for later. "I understand. That's something humans and Martians have in common. We all have to manage our time." She rises up into the air. "I've distracted you long enough. It was really fun talking with you, Mr. Summers. Thank you!" Scott hold one hand up in a still wave as the girl floats up, up and away. "Pleasure to meet you, M'gann. Please feel free to come back any time. Though...maybe call first. Would hate for someone to think we were being War of the Worldsed," he teases. "That's funny! I'll call!" M'gann takes the number that pops up when Scott thinks the words 'call first' and memorizes that, too. "Thank you again!" Then she's zooming off, breaking the sound barrier somewhere at about 1000 feet up. "Grumpy scooter..." She giggles. Category:Logs